Lives Cut Short: Trafficking from Mexico to New York

Global Connect! Gender Justice Writing Project

Part: 8

Lives Cut Short: Trafficking from Mexico to New York

By Zaira Cortes Garcia

Global Connect! Blogger

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

NEW YORK--"In Mexico, many girls do not have to play at being prostitutes. They are forced by organized crime into prostitution", says Silvia Calderon, with a firm voice.

The dogs barking and women whispering do not distract Silvia. The Mexican mother tells her story via cell phone from a street in Mexico City.

"The injustices are already part of everyday life in this country," she states with anger.

"My daughter was forced into prostitution. I saved her, but many mothers are still searching for their daughters", she stated.

Silvia's daughter at age 13 was accosted by a gang of pimps in a Mexico City church. "The pimps became part of the parish and worked with the choir. Parents never thought that their children were at risk," she said. Without realizing what the man's interested in her was, the girl gave one of the pimps her personal information.

"One of the men, aged 25, sent e-mails to my daughter. He told her that he would make her a model and marry her," Silvia said.

In May, the traffickers kidnapped the girl from her home.

"My daughter was taken to Puebla with other girls that were between 10 and 17 years old." The teenager told her mother that some girls were taken to Oaxaca and others to the United States. The daughter was prostituted for four months. Her services included being beaten and tortured.

Silvia reached out to Rosi Orozco, a crusading member of the Mexican congress and the federal police intervened and her daughter was rescued.

Forced prostitution is the new market of organized crime. The daughter's body was sold up to 50 times a day making it more profitable than selling a few grams of drugs.

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